Many exchanges throughout the world now support electronic trading. Generally, an electronic exchange provides a matching process between traders, or simply buyers and sellers. Some well known exchanges include Eurex, London International Financial Futures Exchange (“LIFFE”), Euronext, Chicago Mercantile Exchange (“CME”), Chicago Board of Trade (“CBOT”), Xetra, and Island. Traders are typically connected to an electronic exchange by way of a communication link to facilitate electronic messaging between the trader and the exchange. For instance, the trader might submit buy or sell orders to an electronic exchange and later obtain status or fill information from the exchange. Among other things, ease of submitting buy or sell orders has made electronic exchanges a successful venue for trading. Accordingly, an increasing number of people across the world are actively participating in a market at any given time. The increase in the number of potential market participants has advantageously led to, among other things, a more competitive market and greater liquidity.
A trader can connect to an exchange, for example, using a client device, and the exchange can serve as a host. Once connected, software running on the client allows the trader to log onto one or more exchanges and participate in one or more markets. Some clients run software that creates specialized interactive trading screens. In general, the trading screens enable traders to enter orders into the market, obtain market quotes, and monitor positions. The range and quality of features available varies according to the specific trading application.
Using the trading application, a trader may place orders within the markets supported by the exchange. In placing an order, the trader typically specifies a price and a quantity for the order. Some trading application programs, however, allow a trader to pre-configure the trading application with a default order quantity. Then, the trader may place an order by simply selecting a price level, and the trading application automatically uses the default order quantity without requiring the trader to enter a quantity for that order.
The trader, however, may wish to place successive orders for varying quantities. In that case, the trader may have to manually clear the default quantity, enter a different quantity for the order and then place the order. For successive orders, this can be a time consuming process, and it can limit the speed with which the trader can place the orders.
In the following detailed description, a trading application and trading interface for order quantity entry are described. These tools provide advantages, as described below, to a trader in an electronic trading environment.